Which of the following best explains why Lincoln links victory in the Civil War to preserving “government of the people, by the people, and for the people”?

Lincoln presents the Union’s survival as a test of whether a government created by the people can endure when a group tries to leave it by force. Preserving the Union therefore protects the principle that the people govern themselves. Choice B best expresses this idea: the South does not have the right to break up the Union by force.

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